Spellbound

by Rebecca York

  She glanced over her shoulder, torn. She’d gone to a lot of trouble to get over here, but now she wasn’t so sure it was a great idea. Especially since the only piece of evidence she’d found turned out to be a dud.

  She wanted to keep searching. This might be her last chance to do any snooping around without the deputies breathing down her neck. But she wasn’t going to put herself in danger just because she was stubborn.

  Retracing her steps, she started back toward the log bridge.

  When she got there, she stopped short. She had lain the long pruning pole on the ground beside the bank. Now it was missing.

  As she stared at the new footprints on the ground, she felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Gun in hand, Morgan looked at the log and the water. She didn’t see her friend the alligator, but that didn’t mean he had gone away. He could be lurking out of sight, waiting for something more substantial than a beef roast.

  Before she could decide what to do, something leaped onto her from behind, raking sharp claws down her back and tearing her jacket.

  A scream tore from her throat as she tried to fight off her attacker, but something shot around her body, holding her in place. She blinked as she tried to interpret what she was seeing—a man’s arm covered by a camouflage shirt. A shirt that matched the tarp she’d found on the ground.

  But the shirt wasn’t the important part. His hand was covered with a huge glove, and attached to the glove were long animal claws.

  She tried to kick backward, but he was ready for that.

  His leg shot out, tripping her, then holding her upright against his body. The gun was still in her hand, but her arm was clamped to her side, making it impossible to shoot effectively anywhere but at the ground.

  The claws of her attacker’s other hand raked through the fabric of her shirt. They would have torn through her skin had she not been cautious enough to wear the bulletproof vest.

  The analytical part of her mind was still struggling to work. She knew that the claw marks would look like they were made by a big cat. But this was no cat holding her with one hand and raking at her chest with the other. It was a man.

  She tried to twist around, but he held her in place. She tried to butt her head back, but he conked her on the back of the skull with his chin, stunning her.

  “What the hell are you wearing?” a voice growled in her ear—a voice she’d heard before. But she couldn’t place him now.

  As she fought for her life, she heard a loud roar and the sound of something heavy landing on solid ground—then coming at her with the force of a speeding train.

  Whatever it was hit her and the assailant from behind.

  A gurgling sound rose in the man’s throat as he tried to get away. But something held him in place. In her peripheral vision, she saw a blur of orange-and-black fur.

  The jaguar had come leaping out of the bayou again. This time he hadn’t kept his distance.

  Yet she knew on some instinctive level that he would never hurt her. He was risking everything to save her.

  As she scrambled away, he rolled the man over twice. When the assailant came faceup, she saw that it was Dwight Rivers, the head of the chamber of commerce.

  “No,” he screamed as he tried to fight the jaguar. “Get off me.”

  Then, from the edge of the swamp, she heard men shouting.

  “Go,” she told the cat. “Go on. Get out of here before they start shooting. I have him covered.” As she spoke, she raised the gun that had been useless until now.

  The jaguar could have ripped out Rivers’s throat. Instead it raised its huge head and looked her in the eye, then bounded off into a thicket. Again she heard it scrambling through the foliage, then the sound of it landing on the far shore.

  “Don’t move,” she warned Rivers, struggling to sound in control of the situation as he cowered on the ground, his shirt covered with mud and his eyes wild.

  “You won’t shoot me,” he said, pushing himself up, then starting for the log.

  “Hold it,” Morgan shouted. In the background across the water she could see men coming through the trees. If she shot at Rivers, she’d risk hitting them.

  As she watched helplessly, her assailant sprang onto the makeshift bridge. Halfway across, he slipped off and fell into the water.

  His curse was followed by a scream as something powerful dragged him under.

  The alligator.

  She heard thrashing noises below the surface, saw the water roiling. His own “guard dog” had leaped on him.

  Sheriff Jarvis and another man came thumping through the underbrush, arriving at the riverbank in time to see the bayou churning.

  “What the hell is going on?” he demanded, eyeing her gun. “Put down your weapon.”

  Her heart was still pounding as she laid the gun on the ground, then turned back to face the sheriff. “Dwight Rivers just tried to kill me. I got away from him, but he’s been giving snacks to an alligator under that log. When he slipped off trying to get away from me, it got him.”

  The water was still boiling below the log. As they peered into the murky depths, a red stain rose to the surface.

  “Rivers?” Jarvis wheezed.

  “Yes, Rivers. I guess he’s the one who’s been feeding you all those nasty stories about Andre.”

  “Wait a minute. What are you trying to pull? Rivers left with the rest of us,” Jarvis muttered.

  “That’s what he wanted you to think. When you find his body, you’ll see he’s got on leather gloves with big claws. He’s the one who’s been killing people out in the bayou and making it look like a jaguar did it.”

  Jarvis looked at her as though he couldn’t wrap his head around that scenario.

  Morgan stood up and held out her arms, then turned around, displaying the huge claw marks shredding her jacket and her shirt. “It wasn’t an animal that did this,” she said in a calm voice that belied the emotions roiling inside of her. “It was Rivers. He raked me pretty good. I’d be mauled to death by now if I weren’t wearing a bulletproof vest.”

  “You expect me to take your word that it was him?”

  “I expect you to find enough of him to see the gloves and the claws. I imagine the alligator isn’t going to eat them.”

  Jarvis still regarded her with skepticism. “How did you get away?” he asked.

  Morgan had a split second to decide on her answer. “He wasn’t expecting me to be wearing any kind of body protection. I was able to fight him, then get my gun into position.”

  “But you didn’t shoot him?”

  “If I’d shot at him, I would have risked hitting you.”

  The sheriff answered with a guttural sound, then spoke into the microphone attached to his collar, asking for a team from the morgue to find what was left of Rivers’s body.

  “Can you help me back across? I had a long pole to lean on when I came over, but I think he threw it in the water.”

  The man with Jarvis pulled down a dead branch and held it out to her. Grasping it tightly, she made her way back across, then breathed out a sigh as she stepped onto solid ground.

  “What were you doing over there?”

  “I found this place a few days ago. I saw boot prints on the log and on the ground. I figured someone had been over there. I wanted to know what they were hiding.”

  “Well, this is Gascon’s property.”

  “Right. And someone has been watching the house. I found a bunch of cigarette butts on the ground.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Unfortunately, I think Rivers knew I discovered them, so he cleaned up after himself.”

  She stepped away from the bank. “I’d like to go back to the house and change my torn clothing, if you don’t mind.”

  Jarvis might have objected, but the rain that had been threatening began to fall, and she took off quickly through the trees.

  Janet was standing on the back porch, anxiously following her pro
gress across the lawn.

  “What happened?” the housekeeper demanded as she and the men climbed the steps.

  “Dwight Rivers was the killer. He was wearing gloves with animal claws. But he ended up in an alligator’s mouth,” she said, then added, “I’ll give you the whole story later.”

  “Where’s Andre?” Janet asked.

  Morgan paused in midstride, eyeing the men who had entered the kitchen and were listening with interest. Her throat constricted, but she managed to say, “I haven’t seen him.” Before Jarvis could say anything else, she added, “I’m going to take a shower and change. I’ll talk to you later.”

  She saw his jaw muscles work and knew that he wanted to force her into an interview now.

  “I need to get out of this bulletproof vest,” she added, then pulled off her jacket and tossed it over a chair. “You’ll want this for evidence,” she said. While she was in a reckless mood, she also pulled off her shirt in front of the goggling men. The Kevlar vest kept her modest. “And take the shirt, too,” she said, before racing for the stairs. “When you find Rivers’s claws, you can match them to the scratch marks.”

  In her room, she slammed the door, wondering what she was going to do now. She needed time to herself, time to get her story straight, since Dwight Rivers wasn’t going to contradict her.

  She stared around, feeling disoriented, noting that Janet had come in and made the bed while she was gone. So what did the housekeeper think about what had happened between her and Andre?

  And why should she care, Morgan asked herself. It was a logical question, but she knew that she wanted Janet on her side.

  That was the least of her problems at the moment. She’d come up here to think before she spoke to Jarvis. So what was her story? What exactly had happened? She knew she wasn’t going to tell the sheriff that a big cat had come leaping to her rescue, as if he cared about what happened to her. That would take too much explaining, she told herself. But deep down, she knew there was more to her reluctance to talk about the jaguar. Something she wasn’t quite willing to face.

  She grabbed clean clothing, then stepped into the bathroom, undressed and took her time under the hot water. Finally, when the water started to cool, she climbed out, toweled off and dressed before using the hair dryer.

  As she stepped into the bedroom, her jaw fell open. She’d locked the door, but someone had opened it.

  Dan Cassidy, to be exact. He was sitting in one of the chairs by the window, his leg crossed to make a writing surface as he scrawled notes on a legal pad.

  “You’ve got some guys downstairs chomping at the bit to quiz you,” he said mildly.

  “You were taking a chance on my being dressed,” she answered.

  “Nah. Not with Jarvis in the house.”

  She charged across the room. When he stood, they embraced. “It’s good to see a friendly face,” she breathed. “Thank you for getting here so quickly.”

  “It sounded like you needed help,” he answered in a matter-of-fact voice. Yet she could hear his concern beneath the surface. “You all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hang in there. It’s almost over.”

  “I hope so. But…but…”

  “What?”

  “Andre still isn’t back.”

  “Yeah. That’s a problem,” Dan acknowledged. “Do you think he’s aware of the developments?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered, then asked a question of her own. “Did they recover the body from the bayou?”

  “While you were in the shower. The gator took off his leg.” Dan cleared his throat. “From what I understand an alligator may eat part of a body, then stow the rest for later meals. So Rivers was under a submerged log.”

  “Charming. What happened to the alligator?”

  “He’s going to augment the shoe and purse industry.”

  She snorted, then asked, “Speaking of hides, what about those big leather gloves with the claws that Rivers had on his hands?”

  “They found them.”

  “Well, score one for me.”

  Dan took his seat again. “Fill me in on the details, starting with this morning when Jarvis came to arrest Gascon.”

  She dropped into the other chair and started talking.

  Dan let her go at her own pace, making only a few comments and asking questions to clarify points.

  She was still trying to decide what to tell him about getting away from Rivers when a commotion downstairs had both her and Dan jumping up.

  Loud voices led them back to the kitchen.

  When they charged into the kitchen, Andre stood by the door, muddy and matted. His gaze shot to her.

  “Thank God,” she said, then stopped. She had been about to rush to him and hug him, but something checked her stride. It might have been the audience. Or something more, something she couldn’t deal with yet. The doubtful look in his eye didn’t help.

  “Are you all right?” he asked in a strained voice.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “You’re under arrest,” Jarvis interrupted, then looked at Andre’s wrists. “How the hell did you get out of those handcuffs?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered. “Someone knocked me out, and when I came to, they were gone.”

  Jarvis’s eyes narrowed. “You expect me to believe that?”

  Andre shrugged. “Believe what you want.” In an almost inaudible voice, he added, “You have all along.”

  Jarvis’s eyes flashed.

  Dan stepped between the two men. “Now that we know that someone else was responsible for the murders in the bayou, what’s he under arrest for?”

  “Assaulting an officer,” Jarvis snapped.

  “You mean you arrested him because you believed Rivers’s cock-and-bull story about an animal in the swamp attacking people.”

  “Gascon’s jacket was found at the latest murder scene.”

  “And how does that jibe with an animal attack—unless you can prove that he’s keeping a trained cat in the bayou?”

  Somebody in the crowd snickered, and Jarvis whirled to glare at the man. A few hours ago they’d been willing to believe a lot of wild stories about Andre. Now it looked like some sanity was returning.

  “If you take Gascon in now, I’m going to sue you for false arrest,” Dan said.

  The sheriff considered his words, then shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

  “You made a serious mistake by arresting a man on trumped-up charges,” Dan added.

  “Now wait a minute—”

  Dan plowed on. “If this whole story gets out, you’ll be the laughingstock of the law enforcement bulletin boards.”

  “Are you threatening me?” Jarvis demanded.

  Dan spread his hands in a gesture of innocence. “Of course not. I’m just pointing out that it’s to your advantage to switch your focus. You’ve solved a series of murders going back several months. You proved that Dwight Rivers was clawing people to death in the backcountry. That’s something to be proud of. And the community will be grateful.”

  The sheriff thought that over. “And what would you say was Mr. Rivers’s motive for the murders?” he asked in a tight voice.

  There was utter silence in the room. Then Morgan took a step forward. “He had a geological survey done of the area and found oil on Belle Vista land. He wanted to drive Mr. Gascon away. Or get him lynched,” she added in a low voice.

  Andre was staring at her. “How do you know that?”

  “I found the geological survey maps you hid in a library book because you didn’t want to deal with the consequences. I have to assume Rivers had the survey commissioned.”

  “He did,” Dan snapped. “We’ve been a little busy, so I hadn’t gotten around to giving you that information yet.”

  Jarvis looked from her to Andre. “You know there’s oil on your property?”

  “Yes,” he admitted. “But I wasn’t going to screw up the natural environment for my own profit.”
/>   “Rivers talked to you about it?” Dan asked.

  “No. He stayed out of it. But a consultant from Houston came down here and gave me the information. It was handled so that I had no idea anyone in town even knew about it.”

  “So, you’ve got your motive,” Dan said to Jarvis.

  The sheriff nodded.

  “And Andre Gascon is off the hook,” Dan clarified.

  When the sheriff nodded again, Morgan felt some of the tightness in her chest ease.

  In the next moment the lawman focused on her. “You still haven’t given me a statement.”

  “I can do that,” she said in a weary voice.

  “With her lawyer present,” Dan added. “And I’d like you to do it here rather than in town. Mrs. Kirkland has been through a frightening experience, and I don’t want her stressed any more than she has to be.”

  Jarvis made a sound of annoyance, but he agreed to let her stay at the plantation.

  “You can use the den,” Janet suggested.

  Before Dan led her away, Morgan’s eyes shot to Andre. They needed to talk. But it seemed she wasn’t going to be allowed to do that yet.

  She, Dan and the sheriff repaired to the den. When they had closed the door and sat down, Jarvis got out a notebook, then started with some easy questions like her name, date of birth and driver’s license number. Then he hit her with something more controversial. “For the record, you’re not a librarian, are you?”

  She glanced at Dan. When he nodded, she said, “I’m a private detective hired by Mr. Gascon to find out who was murdering people in the swamp and trying to pin it on him.”

  “So you admit you were operating under false pretenses,” Jarvis snapped.

  She kept her gaze steady. “That’s what undercover work is about.”

  To her relief, Jarvis didn’t object to the explanation. But he didn’t let her walk away, either. With more skill than she might have expected, he took her through the recent events in the bayou, with particular attention to how she had gotten away from Rivers.